Marginalia

Accumulations

WikiLeaks has begun to publish the Stratfor Global Intelligence Files, which provide evidence of, among other things, relationships with Brazilian news media between July 2004 and December 2011.

Your assignment is run down this rumor and fact-check it silly.

Result | There is at least one sign of such a relationship, above, from a list of «signed partnerships» with global media outlets. Agência Estado is also named, as is the Terra portal. No indication of what the partnership entails.

Awaiting the complettion of full-text indexing, we continue to pore over the material.

The document in question, meanwhile, is mirrored here. Who should we ask about these relationships at the respective media companies?

And then there is this e-mail, No. 5502132i in the Wiki-leaked archives:

Yesterday I met with the main POC as well as the head of the paper
to discuss how we could make our partnership more productive.

One of the things the paper requested from us was a list of particular
items we are interested in. Our POC is willing to put us in contact to
the various reporters that are experts in our areas of interest. These
people will be available for general chats and also specific questions.
So, what I need is a list of items that we are interested in. They need
to be a nice balance between specific versus general.

Hacking and Tracking

At first, I was not having any luck downloading the .torrent file containing those documents. Finally, ah, okay: Here are what purport to be them, all 23 MB so far.

returns items on the fighter jet market — Brazil is in the market, with France, Sweden and the U.S. in the running — and the SuperTucano, Embraer’s turboprop «killer Cessna».

swish-e -i */*/*

returns the vast bulk of the useful PDF and XLS documents in the «attach» folder. Takes forever.

[ [Processing … ]

While waiting for swish-e to finish its scan, there is an interesting evaluation of the 2010 elections in Brazil to read.

Pay attention to crime trends. There is a high normal level of violence in Brazil in part due to the overpopulation of urban areas. Changes in how this progresses will be critical to Brazil’s development prospects, so we need to watch carefully.

Labor and indigenous unrest should be flagged.

Unusual or dramatic tactics used by crime ring should be noted — for instance using helicopters and infantry to stage full-scale assaults on prisons to free leaders is not unheard of.

Brazil will hold presidential elections in 2010, and the choice will likely be between the incumbant party (the Workers’ Party (PT-center-left)) and the party of the previous president (Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB-center-left)).

Calling the PSDB «center-left» after a decade in power in partnership with the PFL — now known as the DEM — is to miss the point entirely.

The most important thing in Brazilian politics is government policy towards the economy. A close second are corruption issues, followed by the relationship between the central government and the states, which operate fairly independently from one another, and compete for resources.

Brazil has about 15 years of responsible fiscal management under its belt, and is starting to break out of its cycle of underdeveloped nightmare. As long as they can maintain credibility and fiscal conservatism they may go far. We need to look for anything that indicates a shift in this trend, whether to strengthen or weaken it.

MILITARY – Brazil will be building up its military capacity over the next decade or so. ANYTHING to do with Brazil’s military doctrinal development and military industrial development is of interest. This is a top priority, long-term item.

Specifically, watch for relationships with more advanced military powers to be established (e.g. France) where technology transfers may be formalized.

International relations:

Brazil’s relationships with South American states must be watched very carefully. For the most part Brazil takes a ‘hands off’ approach to regional leadership, and many would contend that Brazil doesn’t lead at all. However, there are a number of arenas in which Brazilian leadership is growing.

Brazilian companies in Latin America are a very strong political force. They operate with the full weight of the Brazilian government behind them, and they are at the same time an way of extending a positive influence for Brazil. Brazil will often use investment projects for Brazilian firms as a double tool of both supporting the firm and providing financing for the country to receive the FDI. This cultivates a debt in the other country, and gives Brazilian companies a chance to expand their operations.

See the acquisition of Swift & Co. by JBS …

Mercosur is an essentially dead trade pact — in function if not in name. Originally designed to be a common market with a common external tariff, Mercosur instead turned out to be an amalgamation of ad hoc tariff rules negotiated by industry leaders in Argentina and Brazil (Paraguay and Uruguay are also partners; Venezuela’s partnership is pending). It is in the process of being renegotiated with Argentina as a result of the economic crisis’s impact on Argentina’s economy. Developments in this relationship should be monitored carefully.

Brazil’s security relationships with neighboring countries need to be monitored carefully. Brazil has signed a hot pursuit agreement with Colombia, and has raised the possibility of a Mercosur police force. Any and all moves to secure Brazil’s borders should be carefully marked.

I am having trouble with the swish-e index of over a million words, drop by later.